Non-Discrimination, Private and Public

In The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that “the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones, and, divesting itself of every temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief.” Are we Americans paying for the crimes of our ancestors with the decline and imminent ruin of our beloved country? Maybe, but if so, what exactly was the crime? Taking the land from the Indians? Slavery? These are the obvious answers, but I cannot think that the evils we suffer today represent any kind of just punishment or karmic retribution for those events. We have long since done what we could to remedy the inequalities that they supposedly caused.

Perhaps the true answer is the opposite of what we conventionally think: our crime – or, at least, our profound error – is not discrimination, but non-discrimination. We started out feeling that it was not decent, or moral, to “discriminate” against minorities, meaning, mainly, black people; and the principle of non-discrimination gradually took over every functional institution of our society, until these institutions became actively harmful to the interests of the very people they were supposed to serve.

I certainly believed in non-discrimination for most of my life. For a personal example, which is almost amusing to me now, I once went on some dates through the classified ads (this was back when they were commonly printed in the free “alternative” weekly city papers, something I imagine has been supplanted by eHarmony). The ads would often specify the race of the person desired, e.g., SWF seeking SWM. I am a white man, but it offended me that so many white women were specifically seeking white men. I didn’t want to go out with someone who would say that! Also in the spirit of non-discrimination, I went out with a black woman or two. One lady was quite nice – clearly interested in white men (she was a lover of books and culture, and apparently couldn’t find many black men with compatible interests), but the instant I saw her I knew that I could not be attracted to her. It didn’t occur to me that preferring one’s own race might be a natural and healthy thing, or that, at least, people have the right to discriminate in the most personal of relationships, even if they believe in equal treatment in the public sphere. (It didn’t occur to me, either, that a white woman with an interest in black men might not be the best potential partner for me!) To give another example, I remember commenting to a female friend about a certain female acquaintance, that I didn’t think I could date her because she belonged to the Baha’i religion. The friend told me that she knew lots of wonderful Baha’i followers and that my comment made her “angry.” Here, at least, I stuck to my guns, insisting that religious differences were real, not something that could be overcome by niceness and kindness.

Non-discrimination is thought by its practitioners to be a virtue – perhaps the highest and most essential one of all. Yet it seems to be the code of non-discrimination that allows the worst evils to enter and flourish in our society, especially as a foundation for legal processes and decisions. The most egregious examples are probably immigration-related. (In a way, this entire blog is a reaction to mass non-Western immigration, though I usually approach the issue indirectly, by thinking about who we – the non-immigrants – are.) Outrage after outrage takes place, and nothing ever changes. Genetic testing reveals that the vast majority of Somalis brought here for family unification are actually not related to the people bringing them in. Investigations show that the vast majority of Chinese students in the United States faked their transcripts and essays. Vast numbers of Hispanics use stolen Social Security numbers. Is a commonsense decision ever made to put an end to the fraud by simply stopping taking in so many people from the particular countries involved? No, it is not. (The Somali reunification was halted, but apparently is slated to be resumed.) Somehow, the system itself cannot accept a sensible act of discrimination in that most personal – and most publicly important! – of choices, that of who to admit into one’s national family. We end up with a sick perversion of the American Dream, where lying and greed are rewarded and become the foundation of new citizenship. Is this moral? Is this virtue?

Ayn Rand, whose works I admire only very selectively, said that one must never fail to pronounce moral judgment. Laura Wood says that we must not fail to discriminate – in this article, she is referring to “economic discrimination in favor of men” in the workplace, but the statement applies to every aspect of society. Failure to judge and discriminate unleashes evil and mayhem. Even worse is the aggressive, coercive enforcement of non-discrimination through grievances and lawsuits. The great challenge for traditionalists and conservatives is to find a way to rebuild a society that judges and discriminates as it should.

A Hedonist Utopia?

It seems to me perfectly natural and right that one should become more conservative as one gets older. It’s not that there is anything wrong with being traditional in one’s youth, but youth is naturally a time for self-discovery and testing boundaries, and it’s important then to develop qualities like courage and creativity, even at the expense of making some mistakes. The older generation, on the other hand, is responsible for preserving and defending the standards and traditions that they know, from experience, to be important to the entire society.

This, though, is probably a matter of maturity rather than conservatism in a political sense. In the political sense, it is by no means true that people always move from liberal to conservative as they get older. With the prevailing liberalization of society, in fact, the default tendency is to become more liberal. This is true of many people of my parents’ generation, who when they were younger would have viscerally opposed the public acceptance of homosexuality or the legitimization of Malcolm X as a social leader. It’s true of numerous public figures like George Will. If you live in a liberal community or work in a public institution where the prevailing winds blow liberal, it is hard to sustain the constant assault on your conservative values. You want to be liked, after all! I myself was at heart pretty much liberal until the shock of 9/11, when I began to see that our inability to effectively respond to the most audacious and flagrant attacks our nation had endured in its entire history was rooted in our moral weakness. That began a process of exploration of self and society that continues for me to this day, some of the results of which are posted on these pages.

I can’t imagine returning to any of my former default liberal stances, because although I may not have figured out exactly what to replace them with, I am sure that as they stood they are wrong. It seems clear to me, for example, that if we don’t get a grip on marriage and figure out some way to get men and women to marry at a reasonably young age and stay married, family life as we have known it, and everything this has meant to us, will be largely replaced by much less nourishing and stable alternative arrangements. I don’t think this is a possibility, I think it’s a certainty. And nowadays, for most social problems, I tend to take a conservative stance – which is not the same thing as wanting to put things back just as they were in the past.

And yet it is a fact that even people who have gone quite far in committing themselves to a conservative or traditional position do reverse themselves sometimes. I’m thinking of a number of male friends of mine who are or were either conservative or libertarian. My assumption, or wishful thought, is that such persons should naturally become more conservative as time goes on and they see more and more evidence that liberalism just isn’t working. To my surprise, though, this is not always the case. One of my friends, for instance, was publicly quite active in the Republican Party up until 2008 and took quite a bit of flak for it at his very liberal workplace, but has lately been complaining about the “extremists” in that party and claiming that national health care may be a great thing. I know another fellow, in his mid-30s, who was very active in his church and, as far as I could see, a rock-solid conservative, but who has lately dropped church entirely and spends his energy trying to pick up women at clubs. (Maybe he finally broke after failing to find a wife at church.) One of my on-line friends, with whom I thought I shared many values, recently told me that he was through with the “far right” and that he thought we may be heading for a “hedonistic utopia,” which he had decided to enjoy rather than resist.

What surprises me about individuals like these is that they seem to have truthfully seen the false and self-destructive nature of liberalism and stood against it, but then somehow changed their minds, at least partially. This, to me, is more puzzling than the case of people with a liberal worldview simply holding on to or expanding that view. How can you see the truth, and then deliberately forget it?

But these persons, if they were reading this, would certainly deny that they are suppressing or forgetting anything. They see reality; I am clinging to unfounded beliefs. Or, maybe more likely: nothing is certain, and they’re choosing to be more optimistic, or to think more flexibly (OK, maybe this is not my strong point!), or to live more in the moment. Who knows how it will all turn out?

I don’t believe it, though. I can’t look at the growth of Islam in our and fool myself into thinking it just might happily resolve itself into something benign without our having to fight it. I can’t look at the efforts of “marriage equality” activists to force their relationships into the institution of marriage, and believe that this won’t harm children, families, and the larger society. I can’t look at illegal “Hispanic” immigrants marching in favor of an amnesty for themselves, and believe that my American society can assimilate their presence. I don’t see sexual hedonism as leading to anything but heartbreak, mutual alienation, and sad children or no children in the long run. A hedonist utopia? A hedonist hell, more likely.

(I feel compelled to interject here that I am no “puritan” and am quite a fun-loving person. But you’ll have to take my word for it!)

Furthermore, all these issues are connected. I believe Pat Robertson said something about 9/11 being a punishment for our acceptance of homosexuality. I do not consider that to be a factually true statement, and Robertson may be crazy for all I know, but there is metaphorical truth in it. There is a connection between our loosening up and de-valuing of traditional marriage (and other relationships and sets of obligations that transcend individual desire), and our ensuing softness and spinelessness as a society that the Muslims observed and correctly saw as an indication that we were ripe for them to prey on.

On such matters, I’m going to continue to try to show people I care about that those connections are real – and I hope this does not preclude also learning from the perspectives of others! It is not that I know much; but all anyone can do is try to express what he sees. Those who feel I’m missing something will, I hope, try to set me straight.

More Important than the Right to Life

During the Bush years, liberal white Americans seemed to live in constant anger, sincerely felt, over the frustration and humiliation of living under a president they despised who was carrying out a war they hated. At the same time, it was becoming apparent to some people of a more conservative bent (most of whom at had initially supported that president and that war) that despite individual victories for their side the country as a whole was continuing to drift to the left. Now that we have a left-wing president and a Democratic majority in Congress, that drift has turned into a series of huge tectonic jolts. Ironically, the open display on the part of many Democrats and ethnic interest groups of an unlimited willingness to destroy whatever remains of the traditional social order has energized many conservatives to resist this destruction. In this sense it is an exciting time to inhabit the right end of the spectrum. Sooner or later, though, conservatives will see that their energy and excitement will not be able to reverse the leftward movement in the long term.

One theoretical reason for the ineffectiveness of today’s conservatism is its failure to oppose liberal principles. Liberalism as it exists today demands that every inequality between men and women, whites and minorities, citizens and foreigners, Christians and Muslims, wealthy and poor, be eradicated; for this it will use any means at hand, including legal coercion, mass immigration, and redistribution of wealth. Republicans, and intellectual conservatives, oppose this coercion and redistribution in the context of individual issues, but are rarely willing to argue for social policies that affirm and reinforce certain types of inequality. Nor are they willing to defend their own society as having a particular character, viz., to affirm that the United States is essentially an English-speaking, white, Christian civilization, an extraordinarily obvious fact that has been deleted from our collective memory (or turned into our deepest shame). Their conservatism is limited; they are essentially liberal in their core beliefs. We are left unable to take the most basic steps to protect our security, prosperity, and freedom – and we keep moving to the left.

We need to learn to articulate non-liberal principles and say and defend them until they are once more current in our society. A non-liberal principle, it seems to me, is one that affirms or justifies a non-egalitarian social institution or practice in terms of eternal or transcendent truths. “Men and women are naturally different,” “Islam mandates eternal war against unbelievers” “the different racial groups differ in average capacities of various types,” and the like are non-liberal facts; non-liberal principles which guide, say, the institution of marriage, immigration policy, or educational practices are based on the recognition of such facts. How many conservatives are ready to do this intellectual work?

Russell Kirk’s Portable Conservative Reader contains a section called “Critical Conservatism” which gives some samples of how this intellectual work might proceed. One is the 1915 essay “Property and Law” by Paul Elmer More, from which I posted a quote last week. This essay is an excellent illustration of what it means to articulate a non-liberal principle. It starts with More’s expressed concern that during a “long strike in the mines of Colorado, with violence on both sides and bitter recriminations,” no word was expressed by the mine owners and conservative press on behalf of property rights. Rather, they argued for their side in terms of “the inalienable right of every American citizen to work without interference” (as John D. Rockefeller put it; p. 436). That is, they argued in terms of liberal equality, rather than defending the principle of private property, which inherently means the acceptance of inequality.

Why, faced with violent strikes and militant socialist rhetoric comparing mine owners to murderers, was no defense made of property rights? More traces the undermining of the idea of property rights to Rousseau, who saw them as originally having been created by a class of men who, having used their superior abilities to acquire possessions, protected those possessions from the masses by passing laws in defense of property. Rousseau observed that in this way “property is the basis of civilization” (p. 440). With the establishment of property, the originally small natural differences between individuals were magnified into the enormous ones observable in modern civilization. More acknowledges that there is truth in what Rousseau says, but denies that doing away with property rights can lead to general happiness:

It is a fact that property has been the basis of civilization, and that with property there has come a change from natural inequality to what is assumed to be unnatural injustice. But it is not a fact that barbarism is in general a state of innocence and happiness. (p. 438)

More challenges head-on the basic premises of the socialism:

Socialism rests on two assumptions. First, that community of ownership will, for practical purposes, eliminate the greed and injustice of civilized life. This I deny, believing it to be demonstrably false in view of the present nature of most men, and, I might add, in view of the notorious quarrelsomeness of the socialists among themselves. Secondly, that under community of control the material productivity of society will not be seriously diminished. This question I leave to the economists, though here too it would appear to follow demonstrably from the nature of man that the capacity to manage and the readiness to be managed are necessary to efficient production. (p. 440)

More also denies that socialism is based on scientific principles, or as Marxism put it, the “economic interpretation of history.”

…the real strength of socialism, the force that some think is driving us along the edge of revolution, is in no sense a reasoned conviction that public ownership is better than private ownership, but rather a profound emotional protest against the inequalities of ownership. (p. 441)

He then states his anti-Marxist, conservative principle in refreshingly bold terms: “To the civilized man the rights of property are more important than the right to life.” (p. 442)

The reader who does not find the truth of this statement to be obvious should “read the whole thing,” as they say, which includes a discussion of Roman law that I could not completely follow. But the basic idea is clear enough. He does not mean that property is more important than life, in the sense that if I am starving to death I should choose to die rather than steal an apple from my wealthy neighbor’s orchard. He means that one of the main functions of the legal system of a civilized society must be to keep property secure, even though, life and human nature being what they are, there will inevitably occur large and small injustices, and even loss of life from time to time, under any such system. Despite this, he insists, “it is better that legal robbery should exist along with the maintenance of law, than that legal robbery should be suppressed at the expense of law” (p. 445). In closing, he suggests that the Church and the University have generally been have always been “strongly reactionary against any innovations which threaten the entrenched rights of property” because they understood that the spiritual and intellectual vocations that they supported depended upon the security of property. (He did not anticipate the left-wing universities and liberal churches of today!). “[I]f property is secure, it may be the means to an end, whereas if it is insecure it will be the end itself” (p. 450).

More’s essay does not completely fit with the current situation, since socialism, in the sense of a movement for communal ownership of the means of production by workers, is not the dominant ideology today (which is why it is not very effective to call Obama a “socialist,” although it is true in a moral sense). Property rights are still sometimes violated by violent demonstrations, but more often by taxation and regulation of how property may be used – say, anti-discrimination laws, or the ongoing government takeover of the practice of medicine. But the broader truth of what he says has not changed at all. Indeed, it seems to me that the wedding of jealously-guarded personal freedom with firmly-secured property rights is part of the essence of traditional American (or Anglosphere) society.

Other conservative principles, similarly, express the idea that in a civilized society, the whole is in some sense more important than the individual parts, or the transcendent more important than the particular. As a former libertarian, I hate to admit this, but it is true. For instance, that the security of the country is more important than the comfort of the individual. That the preservation of the family is more important than personal sexual fulfillment. Or that the majority culture is more important than any minority sub-culture. One can always cite egregious counter-examples that seem to prove these principles untrue, but to believe them thus refuted is to confuse individual exceptions with rules of general conduct.

A propos of the discussion of property, I was interested to read in a biography of Thomas Jefferson about the public response to his impending bankruptcy in the last year of his life:

At the opening of the year 1826, the last of his life, Jefferson’s financial embarrassments threatened to drive him into bankruptcy and the loss of his estate. In despair he turned to the Virginia Legislature, asking permission to sell part of his property by lottery. “If it can be yielded,” he wrote to a friend in the legislature, “I can save the house of Monticello and a farm adjoining to end my days in and bury my bones. His countrymen came forward with voluntary subscriptions to save his estate. New York contributed eight thousand five hundred dollars, Philadelphia five thousand dollars, Baltimore three thousand dollars. The project of the lottery was suspended, and the immediate demands were met….The aged statesman was fortunately left to end his days under the happy delusion that this “pure and unsolicited offering of love” by his fellow countrymen would suffice not only to pay off all his debts but to leave his dependants in ease at Monticello. (David Muzzey, Thomas Jefferson, p. 303)

What is of interest to the present discussion is not Jefferson’s unfortunate insolvency at the end of his life, but that the American people found it desirable that the property of one of our great statesmen be kept intact, although this would bring no material gain to any of them as individuals. They recognized its spiritual importance to us (and the value of giving a living president the dignity of remaining there), as a symbol of our identity and history. They did not hold rights to it as property, but they knew that as a symbol of the nation it belonged, in a sense, to every American. This is why, for similar reasons, the destruction of the World Trade Towers was in reality an attack on all American people, and not just those who owned or happened to be in the towers that day. Materialists do not see this. They would rather that the British royal family’s property be taken away from them and redistributed among the people; they would rather that a cathedral be made into a homeless shelter.

The spiritual happiness of a civilized people is indeed dependent on property rights. The transcendent is more important than the particular, but is realized, on this earth at least, only through the particular. If conservatives, traditionalists, and other committed patriots can seize on these truths and make them their own, things may begin to turn in their favor again.

Citations

Russell Kirk, The Portable Conservative Reader, New York: Penguin Books, 1982.
David Muzzey, Thomas Jefferson, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918.

The Paradox

..it is in accordance with the law of human nature that the sure way to foster the spirit of materialism is to unsettle the material basis of social life. Manifestly, the mind will be free to enlarge itself in immaterial interests only when that material basis is secure, and without a certain degree of such security a man must be anxious over material things and preponderantly concerned with them. And, manifestly, if this security is dependent on the rights of property, and these rights are denied or belittled in the name of some impossible ideal, it follows that the demands of intellectual leisure will be regarded as abnormal and anti-social, and that he who turns to the still and quiet life will be despised as a drone, if not hated as an enemy of the serious part of the community. There is something at once comical and vicious in the spectacle of those men of property who take advantage of their leisure to dream out vast benevolent schemes which would render their own self-satisfied career impossible.

- Paul Elmer More

The complete essay is here.

Non-Radical Revolution and Separation

Last week, I departed from my usual culture-centered article to ask the question, hardly a new one in my circles on the Internet, about what we ethno-conservatives (I’ll use that term this time around) can do, politically, to further our cause. I was honored with several wonderfully thought-provoking essays from Howard Harrison and Mark (I’ll refer to them by first names for convenience although the Heritage American likes formality). Both, if I recognize Mark rightly, are experienced commentators on our National Situation and friends of this blog. I would indeed like to post their responses separately but since that does not seem likely to clarify anything for the reader I’ll simply recommend that you please give the comments a careful reading. There remain in my mind a few principles I’d like to put on the table concerning activism (that horrible word), but that will have to wait for a subsequent entry.

The reality of the spirit of resistance

Although I am regularly discouraged by the unwaning devotion of my liberal relatives and colleagues to their accustomed political beliefs, I hold at core a firm belief that “the spirit – of nation, of freedom, of social restoration –  lives underneath” the dismal surface of our public discourse. There is much intuitive evidence for this. I am occasionally jolted by a very non-liberal outburst from the most politically correct person; and among less educated whites like the gentleman who replaced my water heater recently and reported first-hand what it is like to work in black and immigrant areas of Detroit, there is almost nothing to prevent support for an ethno-conservative position except that no one has ever presented it to them as an option. (The technician confused me by talking about someone named Bomma who wants to take away our guns, and I’m not sure if it was a deprecatory nickname or just his natural pronunciation of our president’s name.)

In the virtual world of the Internet, the ethno-conservative movement is alive and well; new blogs appear constantly, some very good, and a few organizations have come into being as well. One could spend the entire day, every day, just following news and events from that perspective. That perspective is largely unrecognized and entirely misunderstood by the mainstream media, and it still lacks real power; but no one who is acquainted with it can fail to sense its very real – dare I say it, revolutionary – potential.

Because of that I am not impressed by the writer of this article, who though he gives the Tea Party movement fair treatment seems to be engaged in wishful thinking when he considers the possibility that it is falling apart because of internal bickering. This is the shallow liberal view that holds conservatives to be motivated by petty insecurities and petty self-interest and sees them as doomed one day to fade from the scene. I have no idea whether the Tea Party movement itself will endure, but I do know that the spirit behind it comes from the heart of the people of Middle America, who are motivated by a genuine concern for the future of their country and people.

Tea Partiers Turn on Each Other

After emerging out of nowhere over the summer as a seemingly potent and growing political force, the tea party movement has become embroiled in internal feuding over philosophy, strategy and money and is at risk of losing its momentum.

The grass-roots activists driving the movement have become increasingly divided on such core questions as whether to focus their efforts on shaping policy debates or elections, work on a local, regional, state or national level or closely align themselves with the Republican Party, POLITICO found in interviews with tea party organizers in Washington and across the country.
…

Now the disagreements and the sense of frustration they have engendered could diminish the movement’s potential influence in state and national politics.

I think the real division in the “conservative movement” is between those who hold to certain bottom-line conservative values (those once held by 99% of the American population) and those who accept the political triumph of modern liberalism and want “conservatism” to become a more patriotic, business-friendly “brand” of liberalism. The exponents of modern liberalism would like to think conservatism is falling apart, but what is really happening is that it is rediscovering itself.

Non-radical revolution

The question that arose in the comments was whether to work within the existing power structures or whether to abandon this as hopeless and work entirely outside the system to create an alternative society, possibly one physically separated from the rest of the historical country (for us, America). Howard argues persuasively, even inspiringly, for the first option, what he calls a non-radical revolution, while Mark expresses the view, certainly one I have shared, that it may be too late for this and that we need to begin doing groundwork for an entirely separate future society.

I am moved and impressed by Howard’s proposals and ideas. He envisions a long-term Gramscian “march through the institutions” over a period of decades, and thinks, based on a spiritual sense similar to mine, that ethno-conservatism is growing and that liberalism is far weaker than it currently appears. (I would only ask that he continue inform his readers of whatever concrete signs he has discovered of change in our favor. I spend too much time in a very liberal environment and it sometimes is overwhelming.)

How, indeed, can we say this non-radical revolution cannot work when it has not really been tried? We might indeed bewail the fading away of people like Pat Buchanan, and think that if he could not succeed, the younger generation, in so many ways inferior to Buchanan’s in education and understanding, could not possibly do any better. Yet Buchanan worked in a different era, when America may have not been ready for his message, when he himself may not have fully seen where things were going. His successors may find ways to operate within the system in ways we cannot as yet imagine.

Separation

At the same time, in one way or another, spiritually, physically, or both, there will have to be some kind of white separation, as Mark points out. From the perspective of our present society this is a radical agenda indeed, and the demographic factors do result in a situation which may not be adequately addressed by the idea of a “non-radical revolution.” I have never, at the individual level, wished for complete and total separation of white Westerners from other races and ethnic groups. But the assault on our society by mass non-white immigration does force us to stand up for our racial group. Questions which one would prefer to keep in the realm of individual choice, like interracial marriage, become fraught with social and political significance, like it or not.

I thus find nothing objectionable about Mark’s statement that “The goal is a nation for my people and my people alone. We can’t share a nation with other people without this same problem eventually arising one way or another, and so every proposed solution short of separation is actually a non-solution.” I might not put it this starkly myself, but I find the truth in what he says undeniable. It is not a matter of “whiteness” being a goal or ideal in itself. Rather, it is a matter of working backwards from the question “what kind of society do I want to live in and my children to inherit?” I see no escape from the conclusion that such a society must be largely white. This is the thought we need to make it acceptable to express – among whites.

Patience, patience….

A personal admission: people who know me would probably describe me as a patient person, since I seem to be steady and deliberate in what I do, but in fact I have probably been hindered in life by my impatience, by the desire for quick results, more than anything else. I was reminded by this by a comment by Howard on my last entry, where he pointed out something indisputably true about the ethno-conservative movement: “It will take us fifteen to thirty years to build power” and “I can afford to take the long view. Can’t you?” Well, I thank him for his reminder to keep a healthy perspective, something always found in his own writing. We ought to counsel patience to ourselves every day. Howard’s estimate may even be on the short side, but he is surely right in setting fifteen years as a minimum. So let’s get to work, for that time will pass like a summer dream. Isn’t that the point? We want to be a part of something that will last a thousand years. And he who works for the future lives in it today.

Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. (Ps. 37)

A Type of Protest I’d Like to See

I like to think that what I write in this blog might have the effect of influencing a person or two of liberal, or mainstream conservative, persuasion by helping them to see some of the non-politically-correct truth of what is happening to their country. Yet I recognize that in reality most of my readers are already sympathetic to my perspective. Consequently, much of my writing reads like part of a conversation among like-minded people. That has its own legitimate function, of course. We traditional patriots (if I may be so daring as to apply such an epithet to such a shadowy group and further to include myself in such honorable company) need the encouragement, the intellectual stimulation, even the entertainment that largely anonymous Internet formats currently provide better than any other. And if we keep striking flint to steel we may eventually get fire. So be it. For now.

Yet my mind returns again and again to the question of what I can do to contribute to the cause of my people, or, if that sounds grandiose, to at least be part of a functioning movement. The traditionalist conservative, or ethno-conservative, or nationalist, movement has as yet no real power in our society. In America we have scarcely even begun to define ourselves as a people in any other than universalist, liberal terms. The most “conservative” among us are unable to explain why it would be wrong to reduce whites to 1% of the population, though even the most liberal of us must see that there would be something wrong with this. There seems to be no base on which to stand to fight. I myself work for a liberal bureaucratic institution and would quickly become persona non grata were my views to become known to my co-workers. (I do anticipate taking that risk when the time is right, but that does not seem to be now.) Perhaps it might be better to enter a more “conservative” field, where this would be less of a problem. But lo, I look all around and there is nothing but liberal bureaucracy in every area of society, even in the military, even in the churches – and it’s getting worse all the time. What to do? Sometimes I fantasize about getting together with some friends and forming an Amish type of community separate from the larger society. But that hardly seems practical either.

Oh, sure, I send money to a few causes, call my elected representatives once in a while, write letters, things like that. And these are worthwhile, even essential, things to do. But there is no power in them. The powers that be allow the expression of opinion. Almost on a daily basis letters to the editor appear in the local paper expressing solid, middle-American values. But this opinion is carefully filtered out from the actual decision-making bodies, leaving only lifeless printed words that are remembered by none.

And after all, expressing opinion is nothing in itself. For in truth – as some have said – what is going on is not an argument but a fight. A war, which requires the use of force. I am not talking, of course, literally about battalions of troops shooting each other, but I am talking about pressure, coercion, compulsion, strategy, propaganda, and even (as Mohammed knew well) deceit.

We have very little force at our command except for a few fine, brave thinkers. And, on the other hand, all that remains of the spirit of our nation in the hearts of the people.

Now, our society is so rotten, so corrupt and weak in so many ways, that there ought to be numerous weaknesses that we traditionalists can exploit. The very passivity, lack of clear thinking, lack of loyalty, and venality that lead our politicians and businessmen to roll over and surrender to invaders who are largely inferior in ability to their hosts (or victims) and without exception dependent on the largesse of those hosts, ought to be exploitable by those of us who are tired of living under the conditions they set.

Yet for me, a clear path for action has yet to emerge.

One small thought I’d like to throw out today concerns the possibility of protests. Conservatives, of course, don’t much like protesting. Left-wing theatrics, George Bush paper-mache dolls on stilts, stupid chanted slogans, are embarrassing to us. Mob activity is repugnant, the antithesis of the type of politics practiced by a free people.

And yet…we have reached the point where things so outrageous and abominable as to have been inconceivable only a few years ago are being presented to us as normal and beyond question. (Read any issue of the New York Times for examples. Or, on second thought, don’t.) In some cases, I believe the supporters of these causes and activities have become careless, assuming they have already won a struggle that is still far from decided. Why not figure out some areas where selective protest might catch its targets off guard?

For instance, Gay Pride parades. These have become elevated to mainstream events in recent years. I witnessed one in Columbus, Ohio, a few years ago. At first glance, they look like a normal sort of summer festival – floats, music, a big turnout, neighbors on their porches watching the show while enjoying drinks from coolers. Then you look more closely and you see the aged transvestites, the flashes of nudity, the free packets of sexual lubricant tossed from a float, and you begin to feel ill. Then you see the small children who are being exposed to the filth and start to feel that a crime is taking place.

Then you see that Chase Bank (or some such pillar of the community) is a sponsor of the event.

Could a group of citizens not organize themselves to follow these events and, without actual violence, disrupt them? Even if the event could not actually be stopped, it would surely put a crimp on their fun, would it not? One would, of course, have to attune the signs, slogans, and actions to the values of real, average citizens. None of this “God Hates Fags” stuff which one suspects is actually planted by the opposition to convince the public that only foaming-at-the-mouth “haters” oppose these events.

Would this not possibly embarrass Chase Bank just a bit? Are the homosexualists really that powerful and do they really enjoy that much support? Or is their “pride” more like an inflated soap bubble that could be easily pricked? And, if the government or police go too far in supporting them, won’t this undermine them in the eyes of much of their constituency? Yeah, we know about free speech and all, but are you actually arresting people who don’t want this in their neighborhood?

Then there are the atrocities carried out by Muslims on U.S. soil and the craven and dead response of the media and other authorities, up to and including the current President of the United States. The demonic fiend and enemy alien who probably planned the mass slaughter of Americans in Washington and New York is going to be given a civilian trial in New York with our best lawyers arguing that evidence against him gained by “torture” cannot be admitted? Given a platform to terrorize Americans and rally the Muslim enemy through grandiose speeches given while sporting the bin Laden lookalike stinking beard and turban we’ve allowed him to assume as his “human right”? The type of non-human being who makes me realize that even my deep opposition to lynching and torture has exceptions?

Why not have a large and continually replenished group of dignified (but obtrusive) protesters with signs saying “Death to Jihadist Murderers”? Why not set up some of the same outside Fort Hood or wherever the “fair trial” of that creature is supposed to take place? There would need to be enough present for a long enough time that even if the media chose to ignore them they would be seen by thousands of people in person. Again, if such protesters are arrested or forced to move, what will that do to the credibility of the authorities?

Well, I probably should apologize for raising the grand question of What To Do and then offering just another limited, conventional sort of action, of the sort which is indeed being conducted from time to time. But my point is that we need to examine the structure of our liberal society as a whole and identify the weaknesses that might be exploited to undermine it – and the areas (for instance, at present, the Internet) that can still serve as bases for strategic actions.

Since hostile readers will have little to say on this question, I invite my friendly readers to share their insights on this question.

In Search of Civilization

American society, like other Western societies, is clearly in trouble. We see not only a decline in our physical and cultural environment, but, increasingly, the emergence of actual barbarism and savagery within our borders, as events like the gang rape that took place outside a California high school show us on almost a daily basis. But what can we do? Liberals pin their hopes on progressive social reform, carried out by the government and other institutions. Libertarians, a minority, see protecting individual freedom as key. Conservatives call for a return to traditional values and social norms. I hold that the conservative position (perhaps with certain elements of the other two) offers the only hope for saving these United States. But “traditional values” are not simply principles to be followed, voluntarily, by individuals. They must be embodied in the framework of a larger society. For Westerners, at least, that larger society is the nation, and the culture and society of that nation is its civilization.

That last sentence might sound like the sort of dull truism that schoolchildren used to be taught to write in composition class, but the shocking fact is that the idea of civilization, once taken for granted, has entirely dropped out from our discourse. This is a natural consequence of the domination of the values of equality and nondiscrimination. For the idea of civilization necessarily implies the existence of its opposite, non-civilization, the primitive, savage, or barbaric. Western men today are carefully trained to avoid judging any group or society in such terms, because this implies that some groups or societies are superior to others, and that the white Westerner making such judgments might see his own group as superior. Today, to see Western culture as superior is seen not only as morally contemptible but as nearly self-evidently false as the statement “two plus two equals five.”

Thus the idea of American civilization, which once was an academic subject in itself and which formed the framework for any discussion of the history, literature, and culture of the United States, has vanished from our natural life. The defenders of that civilization withered under the sneering voices of people like Gandhi, who is supposed to have said, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, “I think it would be a good idea.”

I think that American civilization would be a very good idea and I would like us to reclaim the concept. Of course, our kindred Western nations need to do the same. We might start by fleshing out the concept of civilization a little.

My 1985 American Heritage Dictionary defines civilization as follows: “1. An advanced stage of development in the arts and sciences accompanied by corresponding social, political, and cultural complexity. 2. The type of culture and society developed by a particular nation or region or in a particular epoch: the civilization of ancient Rome.” I suppose that the word is still used occasionally in the second sense, but probably not in the first, unless with a meaning so broad that it applies to all human societies that exist today. Somalis have SUVs, therefore they are civilized.

A complete set of the Encyclopedia Americana, 1951 edition, is one of the under-appreciated treasures of my parents’ home that I intend to claim for myself someday. It is, come to think of it, a product of American civilization. Interestingly, its article on “Civilization” is fully titled “CIVILIZATION, History of. Pre-Christian,” with no corresponding article on Christian civilization, which I suppose is covered under another heading. The article gives an impressively expansive enumeration of the components of civilization, focusing on Europe and the Near East. It includes things like: food-getting; agriculture; fire; mining; textile-making; architecture; art; music; clothing; cooking; government; commerce; transportation; science (beginning with astronomy); medicine; and literacy. Always amazing is how much people in very ancient times were able to accomplish in these areas.

What is common to these definitions of civilization is the linkage between material developments and spiritual elevation. This comes out in a careful reading of the Americana article. For example, the bow and arrow gave man “an entirely new dominance over his world and lifted his food-getting enterprises and himself above the level of the brute as no other invention had done up to that time.” With the invention of agriculture, man “had to stay in a place long enough to plant and to reap and this acquired a sense of ownership.” Also, “Without the use of fire, man could not have risen above the lowest depths of savagery and barbarism.” For “When he took the fire and put it on a crude stone hearth just within the hut, it meant a better home and the gathering about the hearth marks the beginning of the family circle with all that that has meant.” Textiles, building, music, and other arts are linked with spiritual elevation; for instance, “The wonderful sculpture which filled the Grecian world before and after B.C. 500 must have done much to awaken in the people a love of the beautiful and a distaste for whatever was ugly.”

Almost poignant, in an era when over half of marriages end in divorce, is the discussion of the family, which should give us pause to think:

No single fact has been more influential in the process of civilization than the rise of the family. Respect, consideration for one another, chastity, obedience, honor, sacrificing love, virtues altogether fundamental to civilization, are its direct product.

On government, the writer notes of the laws of Hammurabi and others:

These laws are attempts to compel a certain orderliness, and decency and honor in human activities and relationships. This growing custom of making a man face the wrong of his acts and inflicting a penalty therefore, compelled him to see the need of taking some thought as to the character and consequences of his deeds.

Of religion, the writer says that it “has played its part in helping and hindering and shaping civilization,” and interestingly gives as the first example an example of a Neanderthal youth buried with a food offering. I read a similar story as a boy. The writer sees a positive progression from primitive religions in which man “worships gods which are usually fearful and many, and believes that these gods cause all things to happen,” to Judaism and Christianity.

The civilizing value of the idea of a God as a God of Righteousness proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets has even yet not been fully realized, and when under Josiah social justice was made virtually a religion, religion was destined to play a greater part in lifting civilization to higher levels.

One does sense in the use of words like “social justice” an assumption that the goal of civilization is equality. One also senses a materialistic bias, with material developments seeming to lead to spiritual ones instead of vice-versa. Both tendencies are problematic. One lesson people living in the 21st century ought to have learned by now is that material and spiritual progress are not inevitably correlated, though it may have been possible to believe in 1951 that they were. Our material progress continues, at least in some areas, but our spiritual and social decline is striking. And, as with the recording of rapes on cell phones, technology can be used in service of outright savagery.

Still, the view of civilization presented in the Americana is helpful in reminding us of what we are trying to preserve – civilization as a “total package,” a society of people with a history and way of life that took eons to develop and needs to be maintained and protected. The value of civilization, indeed, the inseparability of our civilization from everything we love and are, was self-evident to all Westerners until recent times. Recapturing the idea can help us focus our efforts to save the thing.

Outlook Murky – The New York Times

I spent some time looking through the New York Times today (to be precise, the Friday, August 7 issue). Conservatives, of course, are deeply suspicious of the Times. Its left-wing bias goes way back, well before 1969 when its editors showed their lack of happiness at the successful Apollo moon landing. Still, it remains in my mind the newspaper. Nowadays it is available everywhere, and even given out free on college campuses.

When I was growing up in the Midwest, the Times was hard to get hold of. You had to go to a larger town to get the Sunday edition, or get it by mail subscription. For practical purposes you could only read it at the library. I remember going to visit my grandparents in the New York area in my early teens, and being impressed at how they had the Times delivered to their home every day. On July 4, the paper would always reprint the Declaration of Independence. I suppose they probably still do. When I went to college, I made a point of subscribing to the Times at a discount through the student agency. I felt I had “arrived” as a student.

Nowadays, I doubt many students read newspapers at all. Those I have talked to say that the news is all bad anyway, or that they get their news from the Internet. I am like them in that last respect. And yet I still feel one should read a newspaper, just as one should write real letters to people (I don’t do much of that either). They should be our bread and butter for understanding society; not a final authority, but a fundamental source. That’s what my father said.

I might still read the Times regularly if its only problem were liberal bias. After all, you can still get useful information from a biased source. But it has fallen far below that. If you are a person who still believes in some of the traditional American values – say, limited government; personal responsibility; national identity; national interest – the Times is almost unreadable. Its stories and editorials adhere to “scripts” that reduce every issue to simplistic liberal paradigms. There is less variety of perspective, I imagine, than there was even in Communist publications during the Cold War; the only advantage the Times has over those is its sense of style – which probably makes it the more dangerous of the two.

What a strange, grim world is portrayed on those pages! It reminds me of something I have said before, that the one thing conservatives and liberals in America have in common is a deep sense of foreboding about the future. No one could read this paper day in and day out and come out with any sense of optimism for the future.

The headlines this particular day:

Headline: Senate Confirms Sotomayor for the Supreme Court: First Hispanic Is Approved by 68-31 Vote. Comment: Justices in our highest court are now chosen based on an ethnic spoils system. Americans: from now on you will see more and more “Hispanics” presiding over you. Did anyone ever ask you if you wanted this?

The Times sees this as a “resounding victory” for their side. I have to admire the brazenness of the photograph of the victorious Justice “returning to her Manhattan home,” with graffiti on the brick wall in the background. Seems to symbolize the third-worldization her confirmation represents.

Headline: Economists See A Limited Lift From Stimulus: Jobs Report Due Today – Outlook Murky. Comment: The “economists” seem to belong to the Obama administration. They and a few “private analysts” think they see a teensy benefit from the massive “stimulus” expenditures. The Times writer hopes this is the case, because when higher unemployment figures are released today, this will provide “Republicans and conservative economists new ammunition to argue that the stimulus has been a waste of taxpayer money.” This seems to leave out the possibility that the stimulus actually has been a waste of taxpayer money….

Headline: A New Battle of Vieques, Over Navy’s Cleanup. Comment: A Puerto Rico story, obviously paired with the Sotomayor confirmation. The Navy used this island of 9,300 residents for military training from World War II to 2003. They are now cleaning up unexploded munitions, with residents unhappy with the possible health effects of detonating munitions to clean them up. It appears to be the usual give and take between the U.S. government and the locals that one would expect, which the Hispanic author of the article attempts to spin as a major incident.

Headline: For Iraqis Released by the U.S., Little Hope and Plenty of Suspicion. Comment: The Times must have published hundreds of stories following this template. The poor Iraqis, detained for trying to attack us! When they get out, they find there are no jobs, so they’re likely to join the insurgency again. Apparently, America needs to create jobs for all of them, or let them immigrate to America. And of course, people are always “suspicious.” We just need to try harder, and spend more, to win their hearts and minds!

Headline: ANOTHER HURDLE FOR THE JOBLESS: CREDIT INQUIRIES. DISCRIMINATION FEARED. Employers Defending a Practice Some states Seek to Restrict. Comment: Poor Juan Ochoa! He thought he had a job lined up as a data entry clerk. “Before he could do much more, though, the firm checked his credit history. The interest vanished. There were too many collections claims against him, the firm said.”

Actually, I am not comfortable with the enormous significance credit ratings are taking on in our society, and the regularity of credit checks in daily life. But if this guy has a bunch of unpaid debts…but the author didn’t think it important to fill us in on those details.

Headline: High-Risk Drug Is in Spotlight In Wake of High-Profile Death. Comment: Propofol, the drug that may have killed Michael Jackson, is being abused by some people. The article discusses an anesthesiologist from Nebraska who supposedly got to the point of injecting himself with the drug 15 times in one night, and another medical professional who used it 100 times a day. A serious problem, if this is so, but the Times writer does not choose to question the character of this anesthesiologist, obviously a seriously irresponsible, out-of-control person, who apparently is now back on the job after several months of rehab.

The Times, and its cousins, provide daily intellectual fodder for our elites in all fields. Presumably they read it to stay “informed” in ways relevant to their work and lives. But what do they learn? The theme is always the same. The economy, the health industry, foreign relations, war, unemployment – in each realm discontented people, usually foreign or minority, present a problem to government or other authorities, with their grievances, dysfunctions, or illnesses. To solve these problems, “experts” must conduct studies and the government must then attempt solutions based on their findings, using public money. But like the heads of the Hydra, the problems multiply endlessly, while there is never even a fraction of the money available that those experts insist is needed. With no concept of the larger, timeless truths that form the foundation for the social order and teach the limitations of what man can accomplish on earth, all you can do is rely on hope – in the person of figures like Obama and Sotomayor, who have no conception of the Good but do believe in Change, Change, Change.

I have long been disillusioned with our liberal media, but I still miss the days when I could take pleasure in reading the New York Times.

The Peaceful Warrior-King: Enemy of Progress? (More on The Lady of the Lake)

O minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?
‘Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,
Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

(Lady of the Lake, Canto I)

Most wars, I suppose, are caused in one way or another by a territorial conflict between two peoples. It is simply a fact of life that to be a people requires that there be some territory that belongs exclusively to that people. Historically, the differences between even similar peoples have been sufficient to cause much bloodshed. We Americans have our own experience of civil war to show how fragile peace and national unity can be.

Walter Scott, in The Lady of the Lake (1810) (1), portrays a 16th-century conflict between James II, King of Scotland, who is attempting to bring the Border region under control, and a (fictitious) rebellious Highland clan, the Alpine, led by Roderick Dhu, vengeful and cruel, yet honorable in his way. The “lady of the lake” is the beautiful Ellen with the angelic singing voice, living in hiding on an island in Loch Katrine under Roderick’s protection. Her father is Douglas, former Earl of Bothwell and attendant to the king, who has been banished from his estate due to suspected hostile intentions towards the throne. Douglas and his daughter seek reconciliation and peace, but the volatile Roderick, hearing reports of a mustering of the king’s followers for war, summons his clan to war. Ellen is pursued by both Roderick and one James Fitz-Hugh, who has wandered into Highland territory while hunting, but she refuses them in favor of her beloved, Malcolm. After a duel in which Fitz-Hugh kills Roderick, Douglas and Ellen achieve peace by surrendering themselves to the King – where a final surprise awaits them. The king restores Douglas to his rightful position and orders an end to the hostilities.

Grounding his story in the contrast between the Gaelic-speaking, not-quite-civilized Highland Scots and the “Saxons” or Anglicized Scots under James, Scott paints a romantic picture of warriors on both sides, extolling their courage, vitality, and masculine beauty. Fitz-Hugh, for example, is portrayed thus:

On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press’d its signet sage,
Yet had not quench’d the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth;
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare,
The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,
Of hasty love, or headlong ire.
His limbs were cast in manly mould,
For hardy sports or contest bold;
And though in peaceful garb array’d,
And weaponless, except his blade,
His stately mien as well implied,
A high-born heart, a martial pride,
As if a Baron’s crest he wore,
And sheathed in armour trod the shore. (Canto I)

Yet Scott in no way glorifies fighting for its own sake, unless in the pastime of hunting – and even here a noble stag is supposed to be given a fair chance to flee. Indeed, the most “martial” figure of all, Roderick, is rejected by Ellen for his savagery and vengefulness:

…I grant him brave,
But wild as Bracklinn’s thundering wave;
And generous – save vindictive mood,
Or jealous transport, chafe his blood:
I grant him true to friendly band,
As his claymore is to his hand;
But O! That very blade of steel
More mercy for a foe would feel:
I grant him liberal, to fling
Among his clan the wealth they bring,
When back by lake and glen they wind,
And in the Lowland leave behind,
Where once some pleasant hamlet stood,
A mass of ashes slaked with blood. (Canto II)

Although the poem’s immediate subject is the conflict between Fitz-Hugh and Roderick, it is really about the effort of King James to peacefully consolidate his rule. This rule the poet considers legitimate, although tainted by the king’s flaws – a certain rashness of character, and inclination to chase fair maids. His reign has been harmed by ambitious nobles who have falsely denounced Douglas and others to him. The king declares that his purpose is to “watch…o’er insulted laws” and “to right the injured cause.” Thus he made a fair judgment of Douglas:

Calmly we heard and judged his cause,
Our council aided and our laws….
…Bothwell’s Lord henceforth we own
The friend and bulwark of our Throne. (Canto VI)

At the same time, the reconciliation is achieved not only by adherence to law, but by a spirit of loving-kindness native to the king and personified by Ellen, who in some small way turns the heart of each man in the story away from rash warfare. Not that Ellen is a pacifist, as the last lines of this passage suggest:

Her kindness and her worth to spy,
You need but gaze on Ellen’s eye;
Not Katrine [the lake], in her mirror blue,
Gives back the shaggy banks more true,
Than every free-born glance confess’d
The guileless movements of her breast;
Whether joy danced in her dark eye,
Or woe or pity claim’d a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion pour’d a prayer,
Or tale of injury called forth
The indignant spirit of the North.

The lawfulness and humaneness of the civilizing order are understood to be Christian qualities, contrasted with the rougher ways of the Highlanders, still partly pagan.

A search of articles on The Lady reveals that it was being taught in middle schools in the 1930s; I am not sure exactly when it fell from favor. There is no doubt, though, that neither its content nor its style would have commended it to educators in the later 20th century. Scott’s extolling of traditional virtues like faith, chastity, valor, and honor in a hierarchical world of inherited positions did not reflect the modern egalitarian ideal. The actions of his characters were motivated largely by their given roles and their virtues or lack thereof; there was little of the psychological complexity favored in modern literature. And the flowery, descriptive style with its redundancy and its heavy rhymes was no longer considered to be good writing.

Not only that, Scott was under suspicion of being a source of dangerous ideas – of popularizing a fantasy code of honor that Mark Twain almost literally blamed for the Civil War. The famous passage, from Life on the Mississippi, is quoted in this recent, very derogatory article from The Atlantic:

Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his single might checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets the world in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish forms of religion; with decayed and degraded systems of government; with the sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and sham chivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society. He did measureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote. Most of the world has now outlived good part of these harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South they flourish pretty forcefully still.

There may be aspects of Scott’s writing that merit Twain’s criticism (which in any case is deliberately exaggerated and probably more applicable to Scott’s imitators); but The Lady contains nothing that can be understood as a call to brash rebellion, let alone to acts of terror. It is true that the portrayal of the loyalty-unto-death bond uniting the members of Clan Alpine remind one the “band of brothers” rhetoric of the South during the Civil War:

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
Honour’d and bless’d be the ever-green Pine!
Long may the tree, in his banner that glances,
Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line! (Canto II)

But Scott ultimately calls for peaceful union under a just ruler, and Roderick in the end pays the price for his ill-considered rebellion (I do not venture here into the question of whether or not that epithet should be applied to the Southern venture). Why should Scott’s message not have continued to be passed on to young Americans, in their English classes and in Classics Illustrated?

Alas, we – or at least our intellectual class – came to believe that Scott’s ideals, and ideas, were not nuanced enough. Scott, said people like Twain onward, portrayed people according to absurd, unlivable ideals instead of as they really are; in doing so, he impeded, or at least failed to help, the progress of the human race. Our real mission was now to transcend boundaries of clan, nation, and race so we could leave behind, once and for all, the ridiculous conflicts which these engendered.

But it was not Scott who lacked subtlety; it was us. He understood the importance of kinship and race, and who controls a narrow swathe of land, and the right of a traditional people to defend their way of life. (Though not supportive of rebellion, he certainly admired the unique virtues of the Highlanders.) He denigrated mercenary soldiers, who “drew not for their fields the sword,” fighting instead for money and adventure. He had a vision of peace between different peoples, but it was peace with mutual respect and with borders, transgressions of which would be punished. And he rightly looked to history as key to understanding the soul of a people, and saw music and poetry as coming from that same soul.

The peaceful life most of us still enjoy in the United States is not the result of our valuing “tolerance” and “diversity.” It is the product of a civilization built up by a linguistically, culturally, and racially homogeneous people, a civilization set up to enforce and propagate a transcendent moral order – just as Scott’s King James sought to do. When we begin to understand this again, Scott will no longer seem so alien to us – and his stories and songs will speak to us once again. We will come, once again, to value and cultivate a sense of personal and national honor. Meanwhile, the true aliens among us, whom we are currently inviting into our society far more quickly than we can “assimilate” them, will become clearly visible for what they are. A nobler and greater culture will become possible.

Notes

(1) The former popularity of the poem is suggested by the fact that it was the source of the last name of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass as well as the source of the Ku Klux Klan’s idea of cross burning (though that practice has little connection to the ritual described in the book). Schubert set a number of songs from The Lady to music, including the famed “Ave Maria;” and the “Boat Song,” also known as “Hail to the Chief,” is the source of the tune played for our President today. It is also the source for Rossini’s opera La donna del lago.

The Temptation, the Mad Compulsion

Billy Bragg, one of my favorite singers once upon a time, had the following lines which came back to me recently:

The temptation
To take the precious things we have apart
To see how they work
Must be resisted for they never fit together again

(“Must I Paint You a Picture”)

He was talking about love affairs – and describing the sort of affair those of my generation experienced so commonly, left on our own with no pressure to make a commitment, and indeed encouraged to “experiment.” I imagine the scenario is no less common today.

Yet the warning applies equally to the reckless stresses we are placing on our society. A conservative thought from Bragg, whose political philosophy was nevertheless precisely that described by Robert Frost in the following lines:*

A Case for Jefferson

Harrison loves my country too,
But wants it all made over new.
He’s Freudian Viennese by night.
By day he’s Marxian Muscovite.
It isn’t because he’s Russian Jew.
He’s Puritan Yankee through and through.
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens:
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it all made over new.

A nice description of the radical impulse! I believe Frost was thinking of the radical 1920s or maybe ’30s here.

The compulsion to destroy seems to rule our society today – though there is now much less of any solid society remaining to be smashed. Let’s hope for a revival of the conservative impulse – to save what we can of what we have left.

*Bragg has continued to struggle with his conservative side, as shown in his book The Progressive Patriot (which I originally learned of from the Oz Conservative, and left a comment).